Posthaste: Five reasons why Canada would not be better off as the 51st state
United States President Donald Trump on Monday repeated the idea that Canada would be better off as the 51st state because it wouldn’t have to worry about him signing yet another executive order imposing tariffs while placing them on steel and aluminum.
His statements have many Canadians up in arms, but it’s also given them a new gear to express their national pride.
Besides negating tariffs, higher average incomes in the U.S. have been touted as another selling point for erasing the border between the two countries.
But there’s lots more to consider when comparing the neighbour nations, according to Derek Holt, vice-president and head of capital markets economics at the Bank of Nova Scotia.
“Canada ranks only slightly behind the U.S. on median household incomes,” he said in a note on Tuesday. “And there is more to the picture than incomes. Much more.”
Holt looked at a series of measures, from income inequality to life expectancy to urban liveability, and said the U.S. comes up short compared to Canada.
Here is a look at five of the 10 measures he examined and how each country stacks up.
Canada has typically done well on the Economist magazine’s annual liveability index, with two of its cities placing in the top 10 in the 2024 edition. Calgary was No. 5 and Vancouver was tied for No. 7 among the 173 cities ranked. Toronto was just outside the top 10 (No. 12) due to its housing shortage.
The cities are ranked in five broad categories: stability, health care, culture and environment, education and infrastructure, “with the aim of showing how comfortable these cities are to live in,” the Economist said.
The highest ranking U.S. city was Honolulu at No. 23. Miami was among the 10 cities to fall the most on the index.
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